Inspired by the phrase, the team changed it to Spanish (it also works in French), and wrote the composition (they had called it, simply, “Que Sera, Sera” before realizing another song by that name already existed). With foreign inspiration on their minds, the team wrote “Que Sera Sera” after watching the Ava Gardner film The Barefoot Contessa, where they noticed the inscription “Che Sera Sera,” or “Whatever Will Be, Will Be” on the fictional family's Italian villa. Also, in the picture, I have it set up so that Doris sings to their little boy.” “But Jimmy Stewart is a roving ambassador and it would be nice if the song had some foreign words in the title. His instructions to the songwriters were vague: “I don’t know what kind of song I want,” he said.
Hitchcock did not originally want Day in the film, but to get Stewart onboard, he had to agree to also hire Day and give her a song in the film penned by the famed songwriting duo Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, the writers behind such classics as “Silver Bells” and “Mona Lisa.” Doris Day was cast in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1956 film The Man Who Knew Too Much alongside Jimmy Stewart. But the box office star, known for her singular voice, never came around to the hit that might have been most associated with her career, “Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera).” In fact, Day, who died at age 97 on Monday, May 13, never wanted to sing the song in the first place.Īs it turned out, almost everyone involved with the tune was a bit reluctant to make it. Hollywood icon Doris Day starred in dozens of movies and released more than 600 songs in her lifetime. American actor Doris Day with mutt co-star Hobo on the set of director Charles Walters's film, 'Please Don't Eat the Daisies'.